


A Mutual Sort Of Thing

by Iron



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers IDW 2019
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post/No War, Bathing as a sign of affection, Deathsaurus loves his mini, Fluff, Long Term Relationship, M/M, quarantine fic, this is just smoosh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:42:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24378172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iron/pseuds/Iron
Summary: Cliffjumper is a sanitation bot in the middle of a pandemic in Iacon. Deathsaurus tries to make things a little easier on him.
Relationships: Cliffjumper/Deathsaurus
Comments: 8
Kudos: 47





	A Mutual Sort Of Thing

**Author's Note:**

> For [Cliffzaras](https://twitter.com/Cliffzaras) on Twitter! If you like my stuff join me at [at @fav_roddy on Twitter](https://twitter.com/fab_roddy) too!

There is something to be said about being in the service industry - 

Mainly, that it’s an awful industry to be in and he doesn’t get nearly as much respect as he deserves. 

There’s been an outbreak of a new type of vent siezing virus, and the entire capital’s on lockdown to keep it from spreading. Not that it’s stopped the idiots who own the apartments he’s cleaning; they’ve taken the time off work to throw _parties_ , of all things, and he’d walked in on no less than four of them having quarantine parties when he was supposed to be going in to _sanitized their hab_. 

By the fourth time he’d just done his usual and left; frag them and their reports, he wasn’t supposed to be working around huge groups of mechs in the first place. Even in the actual capitol building, he’d only supposed to come in contact with his team, a collection of three other mechs, when they polish and disinfect it after hours. Two others in his department have been dispatched to scrub the whole place down several times a day, the secretaries employed by the Senate too lazy to do it on their own. 

In the end he’d worked six hours, been called an aft and an idiot for having filters on his vents, and been told to _clean some idiot mech’s peds -_

Getting back to the suite is a relief. He can tell, just stepping inside, that Deathsaurus had cleaned the hab before they’d gotten home. It even smells like his favorite cleaning product - a sharp, acidic scent - mixed with the scent of freshly prepared oil cakes and sweet energon. That itself is rare enough; Deathsaurus prefers his hab to smell like his own plating, like their exhaust and their normal fuels, to the point where Cliffjumper is reluctant to completely clean the hab all at once. When he does Deathsaurus inevitiably ends up rubbing himself against whatever he’s cleaned in an attempt to get it to smell right again. Half the time when he comes home he spends the first half hour after washing off with the mech wrapped around him. 

Today isn’t nearly so different, despite their changed surroundings. He’s two steps in the door before Deathsaurus is swooping in, scooping him up into his arms with a rumble. “Come on, into the shower you go.” 

Cliffjumper gives a momentary and not exactly heartfelt fight, before curling against his chest and letting his mate carry him off to their washrack. He’s tired, and actually being off his peds feels rather magical at this point. Deathsaurus hums as he carries him through the apartment, keeping his face well away from his frame. Even Deathsaurus is worried about Cliffjumper passing off the virus to him, even if his frame is so full of redundancies that it won’t have more than the mildest effect on his frame. 

He’s not set down even as they walk into washrack. Instead Deathsaurus turns on the solvent shower, sits down on the bench they’d had installed, and starts to gently remove the rubber vent covers. Each time he removes one, Cliffjumper can’t help but flare the vent slats and feel out the way they can finally _move_ again. They’re dropped into a bucket of disinfectant that Deathsaurus already has prepped, claws sliding through the slats to test the give of the metal. The solvent washes over them both, heating rapidly. They pay enough shanix for an apartment with a decent solvent heater. 

The heat sinks into his plating, then deeper, sweeping away gummed up waste oil from his joints and wiring. Cliffjumper sighs as Deathsaurus rubs him down with a handful of soap on a washcloth, claw tips dipping into seams and working out the little bits of grit that have worked themselves into them throughout the day. He pays special attention to Cliffjumper’s thick peds, carefully working loose the pebbles in his tires and the mud in his wheel wells. 

When he’s clean to Deathsaurus’s standards he’s carried out of the shower and under the driers, where he’s rubbed down with a soft shami and carefully polished. At that point he’s nearly asleep, helm lolling against his mate’s shoulder as the dragon pampers him. Deathsaurus does a cursory rubdown of his own frame before scooping him up and carting him off to the nest. 

When Cliffjumper had first moved into the apartment he’d tried to insist on their using a berth to sleep. They’d slept apart for the first few weeks, but Deathsaurus had seemed terminally incapable of sleeping alone. He’d woken up repeatedly with the dragon crammed into his minibot-sized berth, the mech sometimes literally balled up around him, and a concession had been deemed utterly necessary. Deathsaurus had demanded Cliffjumper be moved into his berth; Cliffjumper was unwilling to give up flat, firm surfaces. 

The old nest had been taken apart and reconstructed around Cliffjumper’s old berth, and it’s there that Deathsaurus settles him. “Go to sleep. There’s fuel for you when you wake up.” 

A little hand catches on his hip when he goes to crawl out of the mess of blankets and pillows he’d claimed for himself. “Sit with me.” 

“The Senate hasn’t suspended my work simply because I can no longer access the Capitol.” 

“I want you.” The phrasing is almost petulant, and if this were any other point in time he would not hesitate to deny his little mate. It’s only looking at his limp little frame, more exhausted than Deathsaurus had seen him even after those first, destructive battles before Optimus had taken the Senate and sued for peace with Megatron, that moves him. Cliffjumper had been beautful in battle-grade armor, fierce and small and bright as a forest fire. That he’d been turned away from Megatron’s army when war had been brought up with the Quintessons was deeply unfair, in Deathsaurus’s optics, but there was nothing to be done for it now. 

“I’m only staying until you fall asleep.” he transforms down into beast form, crawling into the berth with a great sigh of his vents. “And you’d better be quick about it.” He nudges his snout in against Cliffjumper’s neck, engine rumbling. 

“I will. I...” His voice falls to static, optics flickering as the feeling of Deathsaurus’s frame against him, dry and warm and clean, lulls him the rest of the way to sleep. 

When he wakes up a few hours later, Deathsaurus has moved his work station in the nest. It’s the sort of compromise they both need.


End file.
